My relentless researching on the Catspiracy has forced Tigger to reveal her plans.
All the details have been released Here.
Temper-Tantrum Tuesday Condensed Edition.
What do you call the 47 million uninsured people who are suffering without adequate health insurance?
People, living breathing human beings with a right to live a normal life!
Shut-Up Stupid Sunday: Leave Elvis Alone
The latest charges from the loony bin, I mean: the Republican Party, is that President Obama has been appointing more policy Czars than any other president.
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are up in arms that the president has increased the number of Czars from Bush’s 36 positions to 32. Washington Monthly
They add this to their complaints that the President decreased Defense Spending from $487.7 Billion to $527 Billion, and when Obama compared the Public Option in healthcare to the Post Office they complained how the cost of a stamp doubled from $0.29 in 1994 to $0.44 in 2009.
Needless to say they also complained about the President addressing school children and telling them to work hard and learn math.
Now the Republican hatred of liberal things like facts and math is well known, but now they are going too far and they are attacking Elvis.
The whole idea for the appointment of policy Czars came after the famous meeting of President Richard Nixon and Elvis Presley.
Nixon and Elvis
The dope-fiend Elvis met with Nixon to see how he could help with Nixon’s “War on Drugs” the US government’s policy of searching Vietnam War Protesters for Marijuana to disperse the crowds.
Elvis’s idea was that he could be a special agent to relate the anti-drug policies to popular culture, and he wanted a shiny badge.
Nixon was so impressed that he wanted to make Elvis his drug Czar until his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman said, “You’ve got to be kidding”.
Almost Drug Czar
In the end Elvis only became a “Special Assistant in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs” presumably in the area of Disposal of said Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, but he did get a shiny badge that was proudly displayed in his collection when he died of a Drug overdose.The meeting did end with the idea of creating the “Special Office for Drug Abuse Prevention” which became the office of the Drug Czar in order to follow Nixon’s idea that:
"[President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to."
—H R Haldeman to his diary
This office was highly successful in making sure that any media reports on drug abuse included a picture of a black male in handcuffs being arrested in “the Ghetto” at night, until President Obama ended the “War on Drugs” this year.
By attacking the idea of policy Czars, Beck and Limbaugh are attacking the man who came up with the idea, Elvis Presley.
This is very offensive here in the South where people worship in order: Elvis, Jesus, Guns, and the Protestant Bible. (Elvis coming in substantially higher as many of them have heard his songs as opposed to reading the Bible.)
So I say to Beck and Limbaugh: Shut-up Stupid and Leave Elvis alone.
Catspiracy Caturday: Paranoia Creeping in.
After months of reporting on the Catspiracy, Tigger’s evil plot to rule the world, I feel I maybe getting paranoid, because I feel that cat spies are watching me in my office as I work.
Cat Spy
Of course, when I look out my window they act like they are looking at something else.
Cat Spy looking innocent
But it is almost as if they are taking shifts watching me.
Second Shift
But I know this must just be paranoia, because I know cats couldn’t possibly be looking through my office window.
Cat Spy
Right?
Fantastic Future Friday: Water, Water Everywhere
Water is the key to life, and by extension Space Exploration. The human body needs 3 to 4 liters of water everyday just to survive. So that’s why it is so fantastic that there has been two discoveries of water on other worlds this week.
The first discovery this week was of water on the surface of the Moon. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy does a great job of explaining how the water was found and how the amounts of water were calculated in his post “Water on the Moon…? Yup it’s real” I can’t explain how the three spacecraft Cassini, Deep Impact, and Chandrayaan-1 found the water without seriously plagiarizing his post, so I won’t even try.
Basically they found that on the surface of the Moon there is between 0.1 and 1% water. This translates into roughly a liter per cubic meter. While this is less than the most arid regions on Earth, which have 1 to 5% water volume, it still means any settlement on the Moon will have a source of water that they don’t have to bring from Earth.
The importance of this can’t be overstated as in order to get one pound of material into low Earth orbit it takes 24 pounds of fuel, at the minimum. To get material from the Earth to the Moon takes even more. If a lunar settlement can get even a fraction of its water needs from the lunar soil, it can translate into tons of material that doesn’t have to be lifted out of Earth’s gravity well.
If we can find ice deposited by comets in the craters near the poles, where sunlight can’t reach it, this would be an even better source, but having a confirmed source of water on the Moon means that plans for a Lunar Settlement can proceed with plans of using native water letting it expand much quicker than if all the water the settlement needs had to be brought up from Earth.
This discovery could also mean that we can send humans to Mars cheaper than if there was no water source on the Moon. The biggest obstacle in sending a human crew to Mars is cosmic rays and solar radiation.
The ISS is inside Earths magnetic field which shields it from this radiation, the Apollo astronauts only spent 8 days outside of Earths magnetic field and were exposed to the same amount of radiation that a worker in an atomic energy plant receives in a year.
Any expedition to Mars will require astronauts to spend up to 6 months in space, each way. This adds up to a lifetime’s worth of exposure during the round trip.
One proposed solution is to have the astronauts travel inside a large water tank. The outside walls of the craft would hold a few feet of water that the crew could use on the journey. This would lower the exposure to radiation during the trip.
If they can get their original supply of water from the Moon this would lessen the amount of mass needed to be lifted off the Earth. Once on Mars they could refill these water tanks, which brings me to the next discovery announced this week. Water has been found on Mars.
We have known water ice was present on Mars since the first telescopes saw that Mars had icy poles. This discovery shows that water ice is present just below the surface much closer to the equator than was previously thought.With this discovery a mission to Mars can count on having all the water they need for living on the planet and as a fuel for getting back home.
These two discoveries are showing we have all the resources we need to open up the inner solar system we only need to have the will to take advantage of them.
That will lead to a fantastic future.
What we know Wednesday: Intelligent Design
In some places in this country wackos are pushing that science be replaced with Intelligent Design. So I thought it would be a good (and quick) topic for “What we know Wednesday”:
Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
In English Classes we have name for this type of reasoning: Argument from Ignorance. An Argument from Ignorance is saying something can’t be so because the person making the argument can’t see how that something happened.
In my (hopefully) funny post: Squirrels have a Liberal Bias I made fun of the Intelligent Design supporters main argument, “What good is half a wing?” by pointing out flying squirrels have evolved to take advantage of half a wing and have used it to secure a niche in their environment.
What Intelligent Design is:
Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”
In English Classes we have name for this type of reasoning: Argument from Ignorance. An Argument from Ignorance is saying something can’t be so because the person making the argument can’t see how that something happened.
In my (hopefully) funny post: Squirrels have a Liberal Bias I made fun of the Intelligent Design supporters main argument, “What good is half a wing?” by pointing out flying squirrels have evolved to take advantage of half a wing and have used it to secure a niche in their environment.
The half a wing argument is a classic Argument from Ignorance, the author of the argument couldn't see the use for half a wing, but that doesn't mean a species (like the flying squirrel) hasn't found a use for half a wing.
As I was writing it I thought I was using another logical fallacy of the Straw Man Argument, setting up an easy to knock down argument. So I looked at the Intelligent Design arguments planning on finding a more solid line of reasoning but I could not find one.
One of the other arguments they have is “Evolution is just a Theory, not a fact.”
This wording is wrong, “Evolution is a Theory, not just a fact.”
A Theory (in science) is taking facts, like “if you drop an object on Earth it will fall at 32 feet per second squared” and “the greater the mass, the more gravitational force objects will have towards each other”, adding those up to come up with a hypotheses that describes what is happening in such a way results can be predicted consistently.
The fact of gravity makes it so if you drop a rock you know it will fall to the ground. The Theory of Gravity makes it so you can calculate how to get three men in a capsule to the Moon and back.
What the “Evolution is just a Theory, not a fact.” argument is, is merely taking words out of context to get a silly meaning. This is like saying, “No cat has eight tales, every cat has one more tail than no cat, therefore every cat has nine tails.”
Another argument they make is genetic information can’t be added to the genetic code. This is just wrong.
Genetic information is added to DNA all the time, they are called mutations.
When an organism sexually reproduces it gets half its genetic information from the mommy and half from the daddy. If either the mommy or daddy has come in contact with radiation, chemicals, or a million other things that can cause a break in their DNA molecule, the DNA will randomly try to repair itself, this will lead to a mutation. Species are constantly getting little mutations all the time.
Some is bad for the species and those born with a bad mutation, like a bad heart, die off sooner than the others and don’t bred as much leading to that mutation not being passed on and being pushed out of the gene pool.
The vast majority of mutations are neither good nor bad, these mutations sit dormant waiting for conditions to change until a time that they give the organism an advantage or disadvantage in their environment or simply become “junk DNA”.
Finally, there is that rare mutation that gives the organism an advantage in their environment like the fifth finger on a hand slowly moving over to become an opposable thumb. Or more elementary single cell organisms that stick together to become multi-celled organisms.
The entire Intelligent Design Assertion can be boiled down to these three lines:
An Argument from Ignorance.
Taking words out of context.
And, finally just plain wrong “facts”.
If anyone has any other assertions that Intelligent Design supporters are pushing, I’ll gladly show you where it fits into one of these categories (or sometimes two or even all three).
As I was writing it I thought I was using another logical fallacy of the Straw Man Argument, setting up an easy to knock down argument. So I looked at the Intelligent Design arguments planning on finding a more solid line of reasoning but I could not find one.
One of the other arguments they have is “Evolution is just a Theory, not a fact.”
This wording is wrong, “Evolution is a Theory, not just a fact.”
A Theory (in science) is taking facts, like “if you drop an object on Earth it will fall at 32 feet per second squared” and “the greater the mass, the more gravitational force objects will have towards each other”, adding those up to come up with a hypotheses that describes what is happening in such a way results can be predicted consistently.
The fact of gravity makes it so if you drop a rock you know it will fall to the ground. The Theory of Gravity makes it so you can calculate how to get three men in a capsule to the Moon and back.
What the “Evolution is just a Theory, not a fact.” argument is, is merely taking words out of context to get a silly meaning. This is like saying, “No cat has eight tales, every cat has one more tail than no cat, therefore every cat has nine tails.”
Another argument they make is genetic information can’t be added to the genetic code. This is just wrong.
Genetic information is added to DNA all the time, they are called mutations.
When an organism sexually reproduces it gets half its genetic information from the mommy and half from the daddy. If either the mommy or daddy has come in contact with radiation, chemicals, or a million other things that can cause a break in their DNA molecule, the DNA will randomly try to repair itself, this will lead to a mutation. Species are constantly getting little mutations all the time.
Some is bad for the species and those born with a bad mutation, like a bad heart, die off sooner than the others and don’t bred as much leading to that mutation not being passed on and being pushed out of the gene pool.
The vast majority of mutations are neither good nor bad, these mutations sit dormant waiting for conditions to change until a time that they give the organism an advantage or disadvantage in their environment or simply become “junk DNA”.
Finally, there is that rare mutation that gives the organism an advantage in their environment like the fifth finger on a hand slowly moving over to become an opposable thumb. Or more elementary single cell organisms that stick together to become multi-celled organisms.
The entire Intelligent Design Assertion can be boiled down to these three lines:
An Argument from Ignorance.
Taking words out of context.
And, finally just plain wrong “facts”.
If anyone has any other assertions that Intelligent Design supporters are pushing, I’ll gladly show you where it fits into one of these categories (or sometimes two or even all three).
Temper-Tantrum (the day after) Tuesday: Sex
It’s funny how things work sometimes. I had the idea for this post on Monday, Tuesday morning I ran across a news story that dovetailed it nicely. I opened up Word to write it up and I got a call from work asking me to pull a 10-hour shift. So here is my Temper-Tantrum on Sex a day late.
At the Value Voters summit Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) Chief of Staff: “All Pornography Is Homosexual Pornography."
"Now, think about that," he said. "And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he's going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I'm pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That's the last thing he wants! You know, that's a good comment, it’s a good point, and it's a good thing to teach young people."
Setting aside the shear stupidity of a saying looking at naked chicks will turn a boy gay, why is it that Republicans (and most tyrants through history) think sex is a bad thing?
George Orwell said in his book 1984 that ‘the sex instinct creates a world of it's own’ out of the Government’s control and therefore must be destroyed.
Sex causes problems for control freaks in Government is two ways:
First in couples, couples that have sex regularly tend to be happier together (no duh) not just because of the mutual satisfaction of boning, but because it is a shared activity. If a couple starts to drift apart but they have to get back to together 3 or 4 times a week to get off, that’s 3 or 4 times a week they have to be together and remember what they love about the each other.
If you constantly have to think about someone’s good qualities, it’s tough to hold the little irritants against them. This makes people in relationships respect each other. This leads to holding their views in higher esteem than authority figures.
If that authority is based on lies, it is tougher to sell those lies to two people than one. As one person might let something they know is false slide by the first time they hear it, the second time they hear it, it reminds them of the first time, by the third time they just accept it because they’ve heard it before.
If someone you respect says “that’s bullshit” at a lie, every time you hear it you’ll remember they think its bullshit and in order for you to accept it, you’ll actually have to research it, not just blindly accept it.
If people only accept facts they can verify, they have no reason to watch Fox News.
That’s why people who want the authorities to control the people’s actions try to push the idea that sex is the worst, most disgusting thing you can do to someone and you should only do it to someone you love.
If you think of sex as a “wifely duty” or worse as only a means to procreation, as opposed to a mutual activity that fucking rocks. Then instead of thinking about not having sex as denying your partner pleasure, and of course yourself, you are sparing your partner the unpleasant task of having to orgasm.
This makes it so when couples start drifting apart (over the decades it happens to all couples) they don’t have that common pleasurable activity to bring them back together.
The ideal state of marriage for the tyrant would be to have all couples hate each other, that way no lie would be checked and the peasant would hear no dissenting voices.
So if you are in a relationship strike a blow against tyranny. Go down on your partner, today. Remember orgasms are the best way to defeat tyranny.
The second way sex is a problem for the tyrant is they lose control of people’s emotions.
The easiest for a tyrant to control the masses is by fear, mostly fear of others. The tyrant will tell you only they can protect you against “the scary others”. They want you to lock yourself into home afraid to go outside, afraid of all other human beings.
Sex (for single people) destroys this fear. First it isn’t as fun alone, even if your doing it alone it’s a lot more fun if someone watches. So you actually have to leave your house and interact with other people. Whenever you interact with other people you find out that 98% of them aren’t monsters, just people with needs and desires just like you.
Then when you get down to having sex, you actually have to be vulnerable and trust another human being. (Or two or three, depending on your tastes).
When you find you can be your most vulnerable to someone you met an hour or so (or 5 minutes) earlier, and they don’t hurt your insecurities and respect your boundaries then it is hard to believe every stranger is out to get you.
By making people fear sex the tyrant accomplishes makes people fear others in two ways, they limit the very personal contact someone has with other human beings, and they reinforce the fear of others by making people have their worst fears come through.
If you go out to meet other people (we are social animals that desire can’t be stopped) but aren’t planning on having sex, then you haven’t thought about where your boundaries are. When the endorphins kick in you find yourself unable think about where the line is until its been crossed and you find yourself naked with a pineapple up your butt as the crowd cheers your partner on. Having your boundaries crossed like that can put you off sex for a week.
As an example, I knew a girl in college who was a devote Fundamentalist, sex before marriage is a sin and all that. Until she got drunk, after a few drinks she would be naked in the hall having unprotected three-ways with whatever two guys were closest while the rest of the dorm watched.
The next morning she would talk about the sins of alcohol that forces people to do things against their will. Needless to say she never had to pay for her own drinks and she would be talked into having “just one drink” about every other week.
If she wasn’t convinced she wasn’t going to get laid when she drank, she would think to carry around some condoms at the very least and learn to enjoy her drunken fucks.
The point is when you think about sex as a positive thing, you have to start thinking about other people in a positive way. When you think of other people in a positive way, you no longer fear them, and without the fear of others the tyrant is powerless.
Sex and the Reason People hate it:
At the Value Voters summit Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) Chief of Staff: “All Pornography Is Homosexual Pornography."
"Now, think about that," he said. "And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he's going to want to get a copy of Playboy? I'm pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That's the last thing he wants! You know, that's a good comment, it’s a good point, and it's a good thing to teach young people."
Setting aside the shear stupidity of a saying looking at naked chicks will turn a boy gay, why is it that Republicans (and most tyrants through history) think sex is a bad thing?
George Orwell said in his book 1984 that ‘the sex instinct creates a world of it's own’ out of the Government’s control and therefore must be destroyed.
Sex causes problems for control freaks in Government is two ways:
First in couples, couples that have sex regularly tend to be happier together (no duh) not just because of the mutual satisfaction of boning, but because it is a shared activity. If a couple starts to drift apart but they have to get back to together 3 or 4 times a week to get off, that’s 3 or 4 times a week they have to be together and remember what they love about the each other.
If you constantly have to think about someone’s good qualities, it’s tough to hold the little irritants against them. This makes people in relationships respect each other. This leads to holding their views in higher esteem than authority figures.
If that authority is based on lies, it is tougher to sell those lies to two people than one. As one person might let something they know is false slide by the first time they hear it, the second time they hear it, it reminds them of the first time, by the third time they just accept it because they’ve heard it before.
If someone you respect says “that’s bullshit” at a lie, every time you hear it you’ll remember they think its bullshit and in order for you to accept it, you’ll actually have to research it, not just blindly accept it.
If people only accept facts they can verify, they have no reason to watch Fox News.
That’s why people who want the authorities to control the people’s actions try to push the idea that sex is the worst, most disgusting thing you can do to someone and you should only do it to someone you love.
If you think of sex as a “wifely duty” or worse as only a means to procreation, as opposed to a mutual activity that fucking rocks. Then instead of thinking about not having sex as denying your partner pleasure, and of course yourself, you are sparing your partner the unpleasant task of having to orgasm.
This makes it so when couples start drifting apart (over the decades it happens to all couples) they don’t have that common pleasurable activity to bring them back together.
The ideal state of marriage for the tyrant would be to have all couples hate each other, that way no lie would be checked and the peasant would hear no dissenting voices.
So if you are in a relationship strike a blow against tyranny. Go down on your partner, today. Remember orgasms are the best way to defeat tyranny.
The second way sex is a problem for the tyrant is they lose control of people’s emotions.
The easiest for a tyrant to control the masses is by fear, mostly fear of others. The tyrant will tell you only they can protect you against “the scary others”. They want you to lock yourself into home afraid to go outside, afraid of all other human beings.
Sex (for single people) destroys this fear. First it isn’t as fun alone, even if your doing it alone it’s a lot more fun if someone watches. So you actually have to leave your house and interact with other people. Whenever you interact with other people you find out that 98% of them aren’t monsters, just people with needs and desires just like you.
Then when you get down to having sex, you actually have to be vulnerable and trust another human being. (Or two or three, depending on your tastes).
When you find you can be your most vulnerable to someone you met an hour or so (or 5 minutes) earlier, and they don’t hurt your insecurities and respect your boundaries then it is hard to believe every stranger is out to get you.
By making people fear sex the tyrant accomplishes makes people fear others in two ways, they limit the very personal contact someone has with other human beings, and they reinforce the fear of others by making people have their worst fears come through.
If you go out to meet other people (we are social animals that desire can’t be stopped) but aren’t planning on having sex, then you haven’t thought about where your boundaries are. When the endorphins kick in you find yourself unable think about where the line is until its been crossed and you find yourself naked with a pineapple up your butt as the crowd cheers your partner on. Having your boundaries crossed like that can put you off sex for a week.
As an example, I knew a girl in college who was a devote Fundamentalist, sex before marriage is a sin and all that. Until she got drunk, after a few drinks she would be naked in the hall having unprotected three-ways with whatever two guys were closest while the rest of the dorm watched.
The next morning she would talk about the sins of alcohol that forces people to do things against their will. Needless to say she never had to pay for her own drinks and she would be talked into having “just one drink” about every other week.
If she wasn’t convinced she wasn’t going to get laid when she drank, she would think to carry around some condoms at the very least and learn to enjoy her drunken fucks.
The point is when you think about sex as a positive thing, you have to start thinking about other people in a positive way. When you think of other people in a positive way, you no longer fear them, and without the fear of others the tyrant is powerless.
Evil Minion Monday
Hugs
One of the most powerful weapons the Evil Minions have at their disposal are hugs.
Demonstration of an Evil Minion unleashing a hug offensive
The Evil Minions will use a variety of techniques to lure humans to hug them. Looking cute is the most effective one.
Evil Minion luring in a hug victim
Another technique I’ve reported on in the past is that cats are sending out cute cards to break down human’s resistance to their hugs:
Evil Minion card
Once an Evil Minion Cat lures you into a hug they can unleash their mind control powers, filling their victim with feelings of happiness and love.
Victim under the influence of Cat Mind Control
With humans under the influence of their evil mind control, the stage is set for them to unleash their evil.
Evil kitten
If this plan is not stopped soon they will take over the world leading to humans being happier and healthier. Oh the horror.
Shut-up Stupid Sunday
Once again I am going to do a post on stupid people, or more accurately groups of people with incredibly stupid ideas. I am using the term “Stupid”, for lack of a better term, for the total lack of Intellectual curiosity and the insistence to deny any and all facts that contradict their pre-conceived beliefs that these groups display.
In my past posts I talked about stupid groups on the right-wing of politics, mostly because they were low hanging fruit. It’s easy to poke fun at the nut balls who serious reporters have trouble talking to with a straight face. Here are some of those posts:
Stupidity in General:
Clarifying Stupid
Against Stupidity, The Gods themselves struggle in Vain
Tea-baggers:
Tea-bagging for loose change
Tea-bagging and doing it Austrian Style
Intelligent Design/Creationism
Intelligent Design
Squirrels Have a Liberal Bias
Climate Change Deniers
What we Know Wednesday
Anti-Vaxers (People who believe Vaccines Cause Autism)
Shut up and put your mouth to better use
In the name of fairness I thought I’d do a post on a Stupid Movement from the more liberal side of the political spectrum and talk about “Self-Esteem Classes”.
The basic idea behind Self-Esteem Classes is that studies have shown that people with more self-esteem tend to be more successful. No shit, this is like finding out that people who have won Olympic medals tend to be better athletes than normal people.
Taking that idea they feel that if you take Self-Esteem Classes, you will be more successful. This is like saying if you give everyone an Olympic gold medal, everyone will be more athletic. It just doesn’t work that way.
To be fair grade school teachers should be a little sensitive to their students Self-Esteem and remember to encourage them to always try and improve, but having students take classes in it is ridiculous.
I’m giving “coaches” of adult Self-Esteem Classes the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just in it for a quick buck.
As an Arrogant Asshole, I know a little about Self-Esteem. The way you build your own self-esteem is to find something you like to do, and have some proficiency in, and practice. As you get better set yourself a real goal that is just beyond your current reach and practice until you can reach that goal, Repeat.
Soon you will be doing something that you thought was impossible. With that success under your belt no one can ever take it away from you.
Then when you find another task, you know you can reach a high goal because you’ve done it before.
Of course it helps to have the support of friends and family, the way you gain that is to look at something tough that they are doing and when they reach a goal, congratulate them. Out of common courteously they will do the same for you. (The downside is this builds real bonds with real people and you will start having empathy for others and its harder to be a cruel bastard to someone you acknowledge as a real person and you will lose blind hatred and bigotry, but everything has a price.)
Self-Esteem is not something you can isolate from other tasks, its part of doing things.
My message to these people pushing Self-Esteem Classes is: Shut-up Stupid.
In my past posts I talked about stupid groups on the right-wing of politics, mostly because they were low hanging fruit. It’s easy to poke fun at the nut balls who serious reporters have trouble talking to with a straight face. Here are some of those posts:
Stupidity in General:
Clarifying Stupid
Against Stupidity, The Gods themselves struggle in Vain
Tea-baggers:
Tea-bagging for loose change
Tea-bagging and doing it Austrian Style
Intelligent Design/Creationism
Intelligent Design
Squirrels Have a Liberal Bias
Climate Change Deniers
What we Know Wednesday
Anti-Vaxers (People who believe Vaccines Cause Autism)
Shut up and put your mouth to better use
In the name of fairness I thought I’d do a post on a Stupid Movement from the more liberal side of the political spectrum and talk about “Self-Esteem Classes”.
The basic idea behind Self-Esteem Classes is that studies have shown that people with more self-esteem tend to be more successful. No shit, this is like finding out that people who have won Olympic medals tend to be better athletes than normal people.
Taking that idea they feel that if you take Self-Esteem Classes, you will be more successful. This is like saying if you give everyone an Olympic gold medal, everyone will be more athletic. It just doesn’t work that way.
To be fair grade school teachers should be a little sensitive to their students Self-Esteem and remember to encourage them to always try and improve, but having students take classes in it is ridiculous.
I’m giving “coaches” of adult Self-Esteem Classes the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just in it for a quick buck.
As an Arrogant Asshole, I know a little about Self-Esteem. The way you build your own self-esteem is to find something you like to do, and have some proficiency in, and practice. As you get better set yourself a real goal that is just beyond your current reach and practice until you can reach that goal, Repeat.
Soon you will be doing something that you thought was impossible. With that success under your belt no one can ever take it away from you.
Then when you find another task, you know you can reach a high goal because you’ve done it before.
Of course it helps to have the support of friends and family, the way you gain that is to look at something tough that they are doing and when they reach a goal, congratulate them. Out of common courteously they will do the same for you. (The downside is this builds real bonds with real people and you will start having empathy for others and its harder to be a cruel bastard to someone you acknowledge as a real person and you will lose blind hatred and bigotry, but everything has a price.)
Self-Esteem is not something you can isolate from other tasks, its part of doing things.
My message to these people pushing Self-Esteem Classes is: Shut-up Stupid.
Catspiracy Caturday
It appears Tigger raising a legion of Pirate Kittens, (or at least one):
Kitty Pirate Captain
With the Cats domination of the fashion industry that I have noted earlier they will turn human females into their own Pirate Wenches:
Artist’s interpretation of a Pirate Wench
As pirates these kittens will set sail and plunder all our laps:
Kitten on Lap
Update: Alert viewers have told me that the above picture is not of a lap. With that new information about female anatomy it appears I lost my virginity later than I thought.
Kitten on Lap (revised)
No one will be safe from the Cat controlled Pirate Wenches:
Pirate Wench 2
The last thing we will hear from the Pirate Cats is: “Arr Mateys, All your laps they are belong to us!”
Fantastic Future Friday
I was wondering about what uplifting topic to talk about when I read (and watched a cool video) over at Bad Astronomy, “What does 3.6 Million Pounds of Thrust Look Like” and I thought people might like to read the thoughts of a semi-professional science fiction writer about what the future has to offer. In the profound words of the mighty Crisswell in Ed Wood’s classic film, Plan 9 from Outer Space, “We all have an interest in the future, for someday we will all live there.”
SPACE: IT’S EVERYWHERE WE NEED TO BE.
As I noted last week NASA successfully tested their Ares I-X Rocket, Reports are also coming in that congress is pretty receptive to giving NASA the budget it needs to run a real space program.
What that means to you:
In the short-term 2015-2020: the International Space Station (ISS) will continue flying and with a crew of six, instead of the minimal crew of three, real research can start to be done. There is promise that research into micro-gravity pharmaceuticals can produce new lines of drugs that cannot be produced here on Earth.
Enthusiasm for this type of research has died down because it is clear that even if there was a breakthrough in drugs in micro-gravity there would be no way to produce them in quantities to bring them to the market.
If NASA is given a real budget, then by 2015 or 2016 there will be four types of manned rockets able to reach the ISS, the Ares, SpaceX’s Falcon, Russia’s Soyuz, and China’s space program as well as a half dozen unmanned rockets that can be used for cargo.
With a space infrastructure being developed it’s not a stretch to see how if a truly valuable drug can be made in micro-gravity, like a cure for Alzheimer’s or AIDS, a pharmaceutical company could spend several billion a year to produce it in commercial space station by 2025 or so.With more options to get into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) private firms can take a serious look at working in space, this will lead to them demanding more options for getting into space reducing the costs more and making more products profitable to make in space, leading to more options, making more products profitable.
It’s been known since the days of the Apollo that space offers trillions of dollars to companies that can take advantage of it, but until the cost of getting into space come down no company can afford to take advantage of it.
Once the critical threshold is reached where the profits of working in space outweigh the costs, demand for space access will drive down the costs and space will quickly open up.
With a new budget and a new rocket NASA might help reach that threshold, and that will open up a fantastic future.
Catspiracy Purrsday Edition
This is the shocking original painting depicting the Signing of the Declaration of Independence:
Evidence of the Catspiracy
You can clearly see a cat overlord forcing the delegates to add a key element to the Declaration:
“…the pursuit of Happiness”
Everyone knows that hugging a cat brings happiness.
Cat forcing happiness on a child
This line was clearly put in place to encourage the early colonists to bring cats in their homes where the cats could work their evil mind control on them.
Cat forcing happiness on Adult
These evil cats know if they get on someone’s lap, that person has to smile and feel happy, making them easily susceptible to their hideous mind control.
More cat induced happiness
What we know (and don’t know) Wednesday
I started the Temper-Tantrum Tuesday series because I know a lot of my viewers stop by to keep up to date with the Catspiracy. For those of you that do that I want to say, “Thank You” and stop by tomorrow for the Purrsday edition of the Catspiracy. I figured if I kept my rants confined to one specific day those people would know that if it’s Tuesday it would probably be a rant and would be forewarned.
I really only did it for myself so I could get things off my chest and not chase off my followers. So when I got a positive feedback I was pleasantly surprised. So I figured I could set aside Wednesday to follow up on my Tuesday rant with a closer look at the science and skeptism behind one of the topics I ranted about Tuesday.
Global Warming
That Global Warming is real and provable is very easy. Our Moon doesn’t have an Atmosphere and its average temperature is –67 degrees F, Earth has an Atmosphere and its average temperature is 57 degrees F. Our Atmosphere keeps our planet 124 degrees warmer, a good thing too I don’t have that many sweaters.
As the Sun’s rays hit the ground they warm it up. On the Moon this heat is radiated back into space. On Earth this heat has to warm the lower atmosphere and it travels upward into the upper atmosphere where it is radiated out into space. This process is called Global Warming.
Global temperatures are regulated by two things, how much heat the planet receives from the Sun and how much heat the upper atmosphere radiates back into space.
Most people accept this part of Global Warming.With that part of Global Warming agreed upon the next question is: Is this changing?
In the last century the average ground temperature has risen by 1.33 degrees F. So yes it is changing.
This change means that either the Sun is heating the planet more, or the atmosphere is radiating less heat back out into space.
Since the 1700’s the Sun has been getting brighter as part of its regular cycle. This means the heat that the Earth receives from the Sun has been increasing, however the temperature variation on Earth has been negligible for the first 200 years of that cycle. Even the most biased (but peer reviewed study) claims that the Sun can’t be responsible for more than 50% of the increase in the last century. Most scientists put that number at about 7%.
The other part of the equation is how much heat is being radiated back into space from the upper atmosphere?
The way to measure that is to look at the temperature of the upper atmosphere, the Stratosphere and the Thermosphere.
The Stratosphere has been cooling off in the last century by about 0.5 degrees C per decade. The temperature in the Thermosphere is best measured indirectly by looking at the overall atmospheric density (cooler air is more dense than warm air). The atmosphere has gotten 2% denser but the Thermosphere has gotten thinner. This means that the upper atmosphere is cooling, radiating less heat into space.
If the 1.33 degree F temperature rise over the last century was caused by the Sun these parts of the atmosphere would be heating up, not cooling down.
To determine what is causing less heat to escape scientists have looked at the reflective properties of different gases in our atmosphere. Some like sulfur dioxide reduce the amount of visible light hitting the ground while letting heat radiate through unhindered. Others like Carbon Dioxide and Methane let light through but don’t let the heat radiate back out. Oxygen and Nitrogen are fairly neutral.
Industrial activity has increased the amount of Carbon Dioxide on the planet. The strong correlation between the increasing temperatures in the lower atmosphere and increasing levels of Carbon Dioxide make it the prime gas to look at.
No, Not that Climate Model
Knowing that is there room for serious debate? Absolutely.
Climate experts in the 1960’s believed that the increasing amount of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere would cause a 2-6 degree F increase in ground temperatures over in the 21st century. The current models show a 3-5 degree rise is probable. Most likely there will be a 4-degree rise in temperature over the next century if nothing is done.
Where the there is a huge disagreement is with the Global Warming doomsayers that point out different feedback mechanisms in the atmosphere and claim the 4 degree rise will trigger scenarios that will cause a sudden jump of 18 degrees.
I’ve looked over these claims and the problem I have with them is the statistics used. They are using low probability events to trigger the next low probability event. So while I will admit that our changing the Earth’s climate on such a massive scale is bound to have some things happen that is hard to predict, the piling of low probability events on top of each other is scientifically dishonest.
A 4-degree temperature rise is bad, but will not wipe humans off the planet. Solutions to global warming have to be looked at in that light so we can work on permanent long-term change over the next century to reduce our harm to the planet. Not look at an improbable 18 degree rise and go into panic mode.
I would love some serious comments on this subject, especially from the extremes (Global Warming deniers or Global Warming doomsayers).
Temper-Tantrum Tuesday
(Caution: harsh language)
Seeing the tea-baggers throwing their temper-tantrums about having a government that might throw them a friggin’ bone and have the health insurance companies use a little lube while anally raping them, I figured I could set aside Tuesday’s to have my own temper-tantrums and blog about things I hate.I will still set aside Purrsday, Caturday, and the all-new Evil Minion Monday to keep everyone up to date on the Catspiracy.
Stupid People
I’ve talked about them before, the Tea-baggers, Creationists, Global warming deniers, and others. They all have the amazing ability to stare right at plain evidence that shows they are wrong and deny what they are seeing.
Frank Schaeffer does a piece on the origins of some of them. How the Religious Right set-up program to turn a small group of their follower’s kids into these sheeple determined to destroy America.
Corporate Owned Media pushing an agenda over the News.
We’ve always had stupid people running around and always will. But nowadays they get the friggin’ spotlight. Someone who brings a firearm to the President’s speech should be politely but firmly taken a few blocks over and told not to return, not assorted to the nearest TV station for an interview.
And what the hell ever happened to truth in broadcasting? If a politician is talking about healthcare their should be an overlay under their name saying how much they take from the insurance companies.
Economists who don’t think Economics is a science.
I’ve got a bachelors in Economics and there is a science behind it. Economic theories need to be falsifiable. So it pisses me off when I see an Economist on TV spouting theories that have been proven false, or weren’t real theories in the first place.
The tax cuts for the wealthy create jobs (trickle-down) nonsense. This has been shown to be false time and time again. It only creates wealth in the financial sector, which would be fine if our financial sector was lacking, but before the meltdown it was 8% of our economy as opposed to its historic 2-2.5% of the economy. It was 4 times as big as it should be so for the last 8 years we piled money on it, while in all other areas of the economy there was zero job growth.
My temper-tantrum is going off in too many directions now so I will stop. Hopefully I will deliver a more focused temper-tantrum next Tuesday.
One last thing that pisses me off is that I can’t think of a topic starting with “W” for tomorrows post.
A message to Tigger
It appears that two of them are broken. They are on my workbench waiting for me to fix them.
New York Fashion Week and the Catspiracy
It's New York Fashion Week and that means the Catspiracy is in full swing.
See if you can find the hidden cats in this ad:
With the cats taking over the fashion industry many humans will be seduced into wearing evil catsuits:Like this:
And This:
The Cat/Fashion Industrial Complex will then use its contacts to send mind controlling cats to Hollywood actresses, and control them while they are young like they did with Drew Barrymore:
After they have complete control of actresses like Drew Barrymore they can use her and others like her to spread the mind control with programs like adopt-a-pet:
They will use her natural beauty to appeal to those that are resistant to the cats mind control:
I know I’d have a hard time resisting anything she might ask me to do.With Drew Barrymore getting people to let evil cat minions into their homes they can take over the world.
That’s Dongtastic III: Test firing of the Ares I-X
Yesterday NASA successfully test-fired the first stage the new Ares I.
Click here to see the test.
This is Dongtastic news as it means the first 36 miles back into space is available. NASA managed to build this new rocket on roughly the same budget, adjusted for today’s dollars, as the Apollo program spent on catering. (Citation needed)
Now that the research is done on the first stage booster, hopefully the per unit cost (sale price) of this booster is comparable to other boosters and it can be brought to market so through economies of scale private companies can greatly reduce the cost of the first 36 miles into space.
Even if it is slightly more expensive than other boosters, having another first stage booster to choose from gives space exploration a bit more flexibility.
Go NASA.
Making Houseplants Allies against the Catspiracy
This weeks Reduce Footprints “Change the World Wednesday” challenge is this:
“Fall is a wonderful time to plant things ... trees, bushes, flower bulbs ... even cool weather vegetables. And, of course, there are always house plants. So this week, plant something.”
Which reminded me that Houseplants and cats are natural enemies. There was one evil cat minion that lived in my house that thought it was his calling in life to rid the world (or at least my house) of plants.
The cat minions have a slight advantage in their war against houseplants in that they can move quicker. I had one Spider Plant that tried to fight back, by growing a vine and trying to ensnare the evil cat minion while it was napping but it wasn’t fast enough to grab it in the brief 8-hour nap the cat minion took.
Needless to say the cat minion took its revenge, it wasn’t a pretty sight.
I researched ways to aid my houseplants against the evil cat minions and here are two suggestions I got.
“Place your Houseplants up high”
The problem with this suggestion is in the wild most plants are on the ground, since they don’t go to higher places I have to assume that most plants have a fear of heights. I don’t want to be psychologically abusing my houseplants.
“Buy poisonous houseplants”
This plan would most certainly backfire as when cat’s bodies get sick their mind control gets stronger. When one evil cat minion that got into my house got sick once, she used her evil mind control to force me to take her to the vet and stay up three days straight nursing her back to health.
So, if you have evil cat minions around your house check to make sure your houseplants aren’t poisonous.Those solutions didn’t work so I came up with one of my own, Cactuses.
By placing Cactuses around my houseplants, they defended the others. I made sure to get ones that were non-poisonous but prickly.
The evil minion tried to attack the houseplants only to be poked in the nose by the cactus. As determined as he was he couldn’t get past the defending cactuses, giving my other houseplants time to devise a scheme to deal with the evil cat minions. They say they will have that ready in a few thousands years. It’s tough dealing with houseplants as they are very patient.
Update on other horror’s of the Catspiracy:Over at Friends Fur Ever I saw a horrifying picture of a mind control cat minion:
Even with just a photo his big cute eyes make me want to hug him and pet him. I don’t know how anyone could resist that mind control if they are in the same room with him. Talking to the kitchen table
Joe Wilson (R-SC) talking with him is less productive than talking to the kitchen table
I was recently accused of being anti-Christian by the Ed Wood of Star Trek critics for pointing out the stupidity of a tea-bagger who called a Jew a Nazi at a town hall meeting.
Apparently, in his warped mind pointing out the stupidity of tea-baggers who call Jews Nazis is calling the tea-baggers Nazis and therefore it calls the Christian minority in this country (he seems to believe over half the country is anti-Christian) Nazis.
Naturally I was too busy giggling over that logic to reply.
Then I got to witness a similar form of debate on House Floor. The Republican response to President Obama’s speech on Healthcare.
The President spoke about the Healthcare crisis in this country and how bipartisan efforts are being thwarted by people that don’t bring anything constructive to the table, just scream out bullshit in order to confuse and scare people. (I’m paraphrasing)
Joe Wilson (R-SC) delivered the republican response by yelling out “You Lie”.
Right now the country is in the biggest mess in my lifetime and in trying to move forward we have two camps those who are trying to fix the country (some of the ways are obviously debatable), and those who think the best course of action is to is to yell and scream and be cry-babies.
If you disagree with him he’ll cry
The Republicans, my apologies to Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and the few other sane Republicans out there who aren’t allowed to speak on Conservative talk shows, have adopted their debating style from 2-year olds. I wonder how long it will be before a Republican Senator uses the clever rebuttal of, “I’ll hold my breath until I turn blue”.
We’ve let the crybabies and whinners have their little temper tantrums, now it’s time to let the adults get to work.
I would suggest a good spanking for the crybabies and their corporate sponsors, but it appears one “family values” Republican has already taken on that mission:
Lawmaker Denies Affairs
When one side of a debate only rebuttal is yell at a Jew that he’s a Nazi then the only response is exactly what Barney Frank told her. "Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.” “I have no interest in doing it.”
Unlike the Healthcare Opponents this has a leg to stand on.
To Infinity and Beyond, or Die
President Obama’s Space Panel released its report yesterday and as expected NASA needs $3 Billion more per year to continue to advance in space exploration. $3 Billion is 0.4% of the Defense Department’s budget.
Ignoring the fact that every dollar NASA spends returns ten dollars to the GDP, and two to three of those dollars are recovered in taxes; and ignoring that advances made in scientific research continue to advance the economy for decades as those findings filter out to private companies. The simple fact is any civilization that does not continue to advance dies.
Without Space Exploration filling our kids heads full of wonder, they will instead turn to thinking up ways to carve the biggest niche of the contracting economy for themselves.
In the 60s kids wanted to be astronauts and scientists and build a bigger pie for all to share. With the death of the Apollo program those geniuses turned to finance, slicing up declining resources in order to get a larger share for themselves.
Instead of new innovative technologies, the geniuses of our day gave us Mortgage based Derivatives and Default Credit Swaps. They created money out of nothing and last year we saw the result, that money based on nothing was cashed in at its real value nothing.
It’s time to get serious about building a better world or Western Civilization will go the way of the Roman Empire and fall to whomever decides to take it over.
Obama’s Address to Schools is part of the Catspiracy
Whitehouse Address
On Tuesday, President Obama will address the kids of this nation challenging them to work hard, earn good grades and stay in school by taking personal responsibility and being accountable, setting real goals and having the work ethic to see them through.
Naturally the Republicans are against personal responsibility and accountability.
It turns out that this is all part of the Catspiracy, Tigger’s evil plan to take over the world.
One of the ways kids learn personal responsibility is by taking care of a cat.
Kid with Evil Minion
Learning to care for a cat, kids learn about the needs of others, having to put aside things they want to do and think about someone else. The evil cats reinforce this by rewarding them with affection and cuteness.
Cats train our youth to take personal responsibility and in the process they gain empathy for others, which makes these kids gain self-esteem and do better in school.
Cat helping with schoolwork
Part of Tigger’s evil plan is to send out her evil minions to train kids personal responsibility and empathy. These kids, trained by evil cat minions, do better in life and as adults will use the lessons of personal responsibility and empathy to rule over those who weren’t taught by cats and have a lower sense of personal responsibility, less empathy and lower self-esteem.
Schoolcat
That is why the Republicans are protesting the Presidents address, they know it is part of the Catspiracy. If the President and Tigger go forward with their evil plan, Americans will start displaying personal responsibility, empathy, and accountability; three things that the Republicans despise.
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